ABC Cinema
Rochdale Cinema Trail The new shopping and leisure scheme for Rochdale town centre on the site of the old council offices and bus station includes plans for a multiplex cinema. Ironically, this will be very near to The Regal Moon on the Butts, whose name refers to the building’s earlier role as the Regal Cinema, later renamed the ABC and, finally, Cannon.
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uring the last century Rochdale had many cinemas and this trail is intended to help Style readers find the whereabouts of some of them. We will start outside The Regal Moon. This cinema was the last one to be built in the town in 1938 and the last one to be closed in 1992, having ‘escaped’ becoming a bingo hall in 1975. Three years later, in 1978, this the now ABC cinema - was ‘tripled’ with three screens being provided within the building. Sadly, the popularity of home video
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and the new multiplex at Pilsworth caused attendances to plummet at Rochdale. The cinema did indeed briefly become Ritz Bingo, before its transformation into a Wetherspoons in 1997. Pevsner’s Buildings Of England notes the ‘extraordinary balustrade, like an abacus’ on the front of the building. It is good to see such a successful conversion of one of our town’s most famous buildings; not all of Rochdale’s former cinemas have been so lucky and survived, as we shall see.